Sunday, April 6, 2014

On Public Challenges...Again, Battling Mental Demons, and Searching for Excuses.

Part one of the Warrior Dash Series.

April 6, 2014

Like all good stories, this one begins with a public
challenge. Wait, didn’t this whole journey begin with a public challenge?

There was an indication on my cell phone that I had been
tagged in a status on Facebook. This is not something out of the ordinary, so I
immediately checked my page to see what it said. My friend, Maria Mercado,
thought it would be the right venue to call me out and challenge me to enter
the Warrior Dash with her. I looked through the web site and immediately
decided that it was not for me.

I turned off my phone and went back to work. Two minutes
later I logged back into the web site. I spent a considerable amount of time
watching the videos and checking out all of the obstacles. Those minutes spent
watching the videos solidified my original thought that a race such as this was
not for me, but my fingers did the talking for me when I logged back into
Facebook and typed ‘I’M IN!’ for all the world to see…and that’s how this all
began.

The mental preparation was the first to begin. I immediately
began thinking about my wardrobe (a girl has to look cute!) and decided that I
would wear something tight and cute. After all, being aerodynamic was going to
get me over the fire hurdles faster and safer! The next thing I began to think
about was that I needed to buy elbow braces, knee braces, and ankle braces—this
girl is 42 years old and I can’t be messing with my joints at this stage in
life, right? This is about the time that the loud voice in my head reminded me
that BECAUSE I was 42 years old, I HAD NO BUSINESS DOING AN OBSTACLE COURSE
RACE!

Paranoia naturally set in. What am I getting myself into?
What if I fall and break my neck? What if I burn my ass while jumping over
fire? What if I make it halfway through and stop? What if? What if? What IF? I
knew that the only way to get over these feelings of apprehension was to call
in the big dog; Joe Rose!

If you have been keeping up with my blog or with my
Facebook, you will be very clear on who he is to me. He is my friend, my
confidant, one of my trainers, and one of my biggest supporters. I knew that
this race would be something that he would consider doing with me. Lucky for
me, he immediately agreed to do it. Soon after, he announced to me that my
other two trainers from The Training Zone, Sean and Trevor, would also be doing
the race with me. Suddenly there was no way out from this public challenge; the
point of no return was reached and there was only the future to look forward
to.

I began doing strength training and started boot camp
classes with my friend Jackie to work out every muscle in my body. If you have
ever done boot camp, you will agree with me that those classes are pretty
intense. I would begin sweating in my car from the nerves of going through the
classes! I walked into my first class not knowing what my body was capable of
doing in this type of a class. I am pretty certain that the head trainer at
FitBody Boot Camp, Mike Cahl, took one look at me and thought he had his work
cut out for him! He and the other trainers, Stacy and Daniel, had me jumping,
contorting my body, kicking, punching, planking, and squatting to music I
couldn’t stand!!! I did everything that my body was capable of doing, and I
knew by week two that I was going to go into this race physically prepared to
conquer anything.

Something was still missing.

As the days passed and race day neared, I began to seriously
doubt myself and looked for reasons why I couldn’t do the race:

A)I
couldn’t afford it—the entry fee was already paid for.

B)I
had nothing to wear—my husband took me shopping for new gear.

C)I
didn’t want to slow anyone down—everyone was doing this FOR me and WITH me.

D)Maria
couldn’t get out of work to do it with me—the team kept getting bigger and
suddenly there were 6 of us from OC and 4 from LA.

E)The
web site said the course was moderately hilly—there is a ‘random hill’ feature
on the treadmill.

F)I’m
too old—the videos showed others my age completing the course.

G)I’m
too fat—this only works if you’re fat and not fit.

H)I’m
scared—yes! This one was the one that had to work for me.

That last one would have worked for me. Honestly, the voices
in my head of self-doubt were so strong that I had myself convinced that there
was no way in the world that I would make it to the race. The thought of
letting everyone down was not devastating enough for me to muster up the mental
fortitude that I needed in order to get over the hurdle—figuratively AND
metaphorically.

On Friday, the day before the race, I walked into The
Training Zone to get in a final workout before the race. The whole way down
there I was thinking of the right words to use with my trainers to let them
down (gently) by telling them I couldn’t do the race. Terror won. I lost.

Driving into the parking lot felt very familiar and set me
in a mental place that I don’t find anywhere else but there. As I began to walk
the steps towards the gym, I noticed that my posture improved and my mind began
to clear itself of the self-doubting voices that kept me from embracing the
challenge I was about to embark upon. And then I walked into the gym…

Trevor was sitting at the front desk. He lifted his head and
when he saw that it was me, the broadest smile came across his face and through
his eyes. It was at that precise moment that I felt all of the fear leave my
body. I am going to explain a little here in the best way I know how. Trevor is
like that pair of cleats that you wore as a child that always fit just right,
never pinching your toes or giving you blisters in your heal. He is like the
softball glove my brother bought me when I was a child—well loved and never let
me down. He is like that book on your shelf that no matter what you are going
through, you can walk up to it, open it to any page, and a passage from that
page will make everything in your life make sense. That’s who Trevor is and I
had him all to myself as I spilled my guts about everything I feared about the
race.

It only took him a few minutes to convince me that not only
was I invincible and well-prepared, but more importantly, that this race had
nothing to do with time and everything to do with completion; he said, “You are
not competing against anyone, Lori. We are all doing this for you so we will be
by your side the entire time.”

Poof. It was like he sprayed from a magic can and my fear
was gone. Minutes later, as if Trevor had pushed the imaginary panic button
underneath the front desk, Sean walks in and immediately hugs me and asked me
if I was ready for the race. For the record, I have no idea if there’s a panic
button underneath the front desk. For the record, crazy, insecure women like me
are the reason why all gyms should have panic buttons underneath the front
desk!

I went home from The Training Zone without getting in a
workout. The thing about this place is that sometimes all I need to do is walk
in to center my soul. When my life is in disarray and nothing or no one can fix
it, I know to go there. I was ready to take on the world when I walked out the
door.